Notes for Azed 2,763

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,763 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2 / 5)

Another plain puzzle that seemed to be close to the middle of the difficulty spectrum, with some friendly anagrams perhaps tugging it a fraction towards the easier end. Some entertaining clues, and one or two wordplays which fully tested the flexibility of the English language.

Clue Writers’ Corner

The Rules and Requests section suggests that this is a non-competition puzzle, but in fact entrants must submit a clue to the entry at 22 across. The paragraph should read:

Send correct solution (one only) and clue to replace definition asterisked (on separate sheet also bearing name and address, securely attached) to the Azed judge at Azed No. 2,763, PO Box 518, Oxford, OX2 6WX. Entries must be received by Monday week following publication at the latest and be postmarked no later than the Saturday following publication. Please include a brief explanation of your clue. Emailed entries will be accepted for overseas submissions only, addressed to jcrowther2000@hotmail.com and must reach Azed by no later than the Saturday following publication of the relevant competition puzzle.

When it comes to defining a noun which specifies a particular quality, there are a few possible approaches. The following take as an example the answer VERBOSITY:

1. A simple definition, such as the one provided by Azed. It doesn’t have to be explicitly given by Chambers, but it needs to be a near-synonym. So ‘prolixity’ would be a perfectly good definition, as would ‘wordiness’. The problem with definitions like this is that they are not the easiest to integrate into an interesting clue. If using a definition like this, it’s essential to disguise the break between the wordplay and the definition and to make the clue as interesting as possible; deception based on these definitions is almost impossible, because prolixity is, well, prolixity, and that’s one reason why experienced clue writers tend to eschew this sort of definition. If I had to choose a single-word definition of VERBOSITY for a clue, I would select ‘windiness’, because that does provide the opportunity to say something significantly different in the surface and cryptic readings.
2. A definition which would not be found in the dictionary but tells it like it is, eg ‘being prone to wind’.
3. A definition which uses a negative, eg ‘never closing trap’.
4. A definition based on someone who displays the quality, eg ‘Dickens suffered from it’.
5. A definition based on exemplification in the clue, eg “Starts off vigorously expounding, rapidly becomes overblown, slipping into tedious yammering – suggesting this?”.

As always, I would encourage readers to have a go at the competition – if you’re not a regular competitor, my top tips would be (i) keep it simple; (ii) avoid the extremely obvious (eg OVERTURE as an anagram of TROUVERE in the May comp); (iii) make the surface reading as convincing as you can; and (iv) check your clue carefully to make sure that the cryptic reading is sound.

Setters’ Corner: This week I’m going to look at clue 3d, “Auld Nick that is on the phone to America (6)”. The wordplay has the abbreviation of the Latin for ‘that is’ following a US slang term for the telephone, with the answer being a Scots term for the Devil (not explicitly indicated in the definition, but implied by the use of ‘Auld’ rather than ‘Old’). The point of interest here is one that divides setters and editors, namely the use of ‘on’ as a juxtaposition indicator. I think everyone agrees that it is allowable in down entries as a neutral indicator, ie ‘A on B’ leading to AB, and its use as a postposition indicator in across entries, ie ‘A on B’ giving BA is also generally accepted (sense 18 of the word in Chambers, ‘just after’, supporting this). Then things start getting a little more controversial. The meaning of ‘close to, beside’ surely tells us that ‘A on B’ in an across clue is legitimate for AB, and since ‘A after B’ is fine in both across and down clues for BA, that sense of  ‘just after’ must mean that ‘A on B’ is fine for BA in a down entry. So all four combinations are technically valid – but I would never use ‘A on B’ in a down clue to indicate BA (as Azed has here) because it is so blatantly counterintuitive and is unlikely to go down well with solvers.

Across

11a Stop relative leading advance (4)
Chambers gives one sense of the noun ‘relative’ as ‘a relative word, esp a relative pronoun’, and it is just such a word which must go before (‘leading’) the usual single-letter abbreviation for ‘advance’.

12a Martin’s not one breaking window (7)
A slightly strange wordplay here, which I think works marginally better without the word ‘not’. This gives us an 8-letter word meaning ‘of or relating to Martin ??????, the great German Protestant reformer’ (ie “Martin’s”) with the single-letter word for ‘one’ being removed (‘breaking’, ie ‘bursting forth’). Otherwise, we have ‘not one’ indicating the loss of the single-letter word which is dividing (‘breaking’) the 8-letter one – except it isn’t dividing the word, it’s an integral part of it. Either way, there really ought to be a comma after “Martin’s”.

13a Obscure Scots herb turned up with recipe on pastry crust (6)
A reversal (‘turned’) of UP (from the clue) is followed by the single-letter abbreviation for ‘recipe’ and a 3-letter word for a pastry crust, or at least something within a pastry crust. The answer is one of those Chambers entries that must get very nervous every time a new edition is under discussion.

14a Soft fabric, small one, mostly costly included (6)
A 3-letter word for something small, particularly a child or a drink, has a word meaning ‘wealthy’ or ‘costly’, lacking its last letter (‘mostly’), inserted (‘included’).

18a Like an acid found in Swiss lake limitlessly? (4)
The name of a Swiss lake – and city – is deprived of its first and last letters (‘limitlessly’).

26a Grating sound made by weak horse swallowing bit of straw (4)
A word for an inferior horse (or a disreputable person, as in ‘It was that young ???’) contains (‘swallowing’) the first letter (‘bit’) of ‘straw’.

29a Gnashers like this will get bent back in twisted irons (8)
A word meaning ‘thus’ (‘like this’), usually seen in brackets in quoted text to indicate that while the preceding word may look wrong it’s what the person being quoted really said or wrote, is reversed (‘will get bent back’) inside an anagram (‘twisted’) of IRONS.

31a Hoo-ha when island bovine’s ingested toxic compound (6)
A 3-letter word for a hoo-ha or racket has the single-letter abbreviation for island and a word for an animal of the cattle family put inside (‘ingested’).

32a Position skin design in middle of masses (6)
An earlier 4-letter spelling of a familiar word for a ‘skin design’ (more recently the name of a controversial Russian female pop duo) is sandwiched by the central letters (‘middle’) of ‘masses’.

Down

5d Elated, speaks softly in sound poetic constructs (6)
Far up in the sky
Soothing murmurs of the dove
Sound a lot like these

7d Line of planks to fit out round radius (6)
A 5-letter word meaning to ‘fit out’, or more generally ‘to invest in or support by supplying with money’ (as in ‘she agreed to ????? their new enterprise’), is set round the usual abbreviation for ‘radius’.

8d Distinguish sailors after end of voyage, dry on top (6)
A 2-letter abbreviation for a UK warfare force that includes a lot of sailors is placed after the last letter (‘end’) of ‘voyage’, and a word meaning ‘dry’, specifically applied to wine, is put on top of the combination.

9d Power put into demonstration not quite in condition (7)
A 3-letter Latin word for power or force is contained by (‘put into’) a 5-letter word for a demonstration that establishes the truth of a proposition, the latter having been shorn of its last letter (‘not quite’).

13d Go exercising on range of hills – Americans may get stuck up it! (10)
A 3-letter word for ‘go’ in the oomph sense is followed by a 2-letter abbreviation for a type of exercise and a word for a hill-range. The definition reminded me of one of Azed’s classics, “Reason for infanta’s visit?” for NUT-TREE.

20d Prince vaunting more of a shower? (7)
Outside Monaco, the Prince here is probably best known for being part of the ‘wedding of the century’ in April 1956, when he married Grace Kelly, thereafter Princess Grace. The second definition probably warrants the question mark at the end, but it seems perfectly fair.

21d No longer pays for armed guards king dismissed (6)
A 7-letter word for the sort of armed guards that might (one assumes) be supplied by a suitable agency has the monarchical abbreviation for ‘king’ removed (‘dismissed’). A comma (or a word such as ‘with’) must be inferred between ‘guards’ and ‘king’.

23d Count calling for more music in opening race (start off) (6)
The word IN (from the clue) is contained by (‘opening’) a word (taken from Italian) for a race, from which the first letter has been omitted (‘start off’). The Count is the one who kicks off Act I Scene I of Twelfth Night thus:

If music be the food of love, play on.
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die.
That strain again! It had a dying fall.

Although he is the Duke of Illyria, he is also frequently referred to as ‘Count’.

28d Slow dance, sort of jig filled with love (5)
A term for something which is used by anglers to attract fish contains (‘filled with’) the usual single-letter representation of ‘love’. The indication of this term is surely the wrong way round, though – a jig is a sort of ???? rather than a ???? being a sort of jig.

(definitions are underlined)